


As You Go

by KrisseyCrystal (AisukuriMuStudio)



Series: Sormik Week 2017 [5]
Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: A little bit of fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Mikleo gets to try and process the truth about what happened in Camlann, Sormik Week 2017, Spoilers for the Iris Gem and after, aka a scene I wish the game included where
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 10:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11621442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AisukuriMuStudio/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal
Summary: In which Sorey and Mikleo spend a night together under the stars, grappling with the truth about their own origin story within the Origin Village, and Mikleo finds that when the stars offer him no solace, maybe the strong arms of a green-eyed Shepherd can.Sormik Week 2017 - Day 5: Loghrin, Truth/Time





	As You Go

They sit in the quiet of their bedroom in Loghrin until Mikleo says he wants to see the stars. Sorey walks with him, leaving his Shepherd’s cloak and the other seraphim and squire of their party behind, and the two exit the inn and the walls of the small desert city and tread into the sand.

Sorey has a brief thought when Mikleo lays down that he should complain about getting sand in his clothes. But it never quite leaves his throat. Sorey lies down beside his friend and stares up at the night sky—a deep and dark velvet filled with as many stars as there are emotions, maybe more than they’ve ever realized—and somehow, he can’t help but feel humbled. Small.

“Mikleo?”

“Hm?”

“You…know that thing we hear some people say? About how maybe the loved ones we’ve lost are watching us from the stars?”

Mikleo hums.

“You think… _they’re_ watching us?”

“Who?”

“Our moms.”

Mikleo doesn’t answer.

Sorey turns to look at him; his feather earring tickles the soft flesh of his cheek. He sees a tension around Mikleo’s eyes that he knows speaks of pain. There’s a certain furrow to his brow he’s traced with his fingers before when he was far younger to point out, ‘You look like a guppy fish when you pout.’

Mikleo sighs after a long moment. “I don’t know,” he says, soft and uncertain.

It occurs to Sorey that it’s been a long time since he’s heard Mikleo’s thoughts like this, with just the two of them.

He turns on his side. “What are you thinking about?” he asks quietly.

Mikleo blinks slow. His thin, pale hands fold neatly over his stomach. “A lot of things.”

“Like what?”

A small sound escapes the water seraph. It sounds like the ghost of a laugh. “You should know, Sorey,” he chides quietly. Amaranthine eyes glitter like gems in the moonlight as they turn to him. “I think you’re thinking about the same things.”

“Probably. But not in the same way,” Sorey says and Mikleo doesn’t disagree.

Mikleo sighs and lowers his eyes.

Mikleo used to confide in him a lot, Sorey remembers. Just as Sorey himself did to Mikleo in return. When they were children, they would confess their deepest secrets to each other, the darkest parts of themselves they were too afraid to show anyone else. Ever since Sorey can remember, neither of them had ever been afraid of each other and the yawning expanse of the interior of their persons—not when it’s their other half they were being entrusted with.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks, his voice quiet.

Mikleo waits. After a long pause, he nods.

And Sorey thinks that Mikleo’s unspoken trust in him—still present, even after all this time and all they’ve had to face—is humbling, too.

“I can’t stop thinking about what the Iris Gem showed us,” Mikleo confesses and Sorey holds his breath. “Camlann. Heldalf. Mich—“ His voice hitches like a flinch. His hands tighten on each other. “Michael.”

“Us,” Sorey adds.

Mikleo nods and lifts his eyes again. “Us.”

The water seraph takes a breath. Silence drifts between them for a long stretch until Mikleo finally admits, “And I think the reason I can’t stop thinking about it is that I…I don’t think I know how to feel about it all. About the truth.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Mikleo closes his eyes hard. “I don’t know, Sorey. I keep thinking I should be angry.”

“Okay.” Sorey watches his friend closely. “ _Do_ you feel angry?”

“I mean, I suppose?” Mikleo’s breath thins, strains. When he blinks his eyes open, there’s a bright sheen to them. “Maybe? I don’t really know. I guess I just feel hurt, more than anything. Upset?”

“Yeah?”

Mikleo swallows hard and he nods. He takes another shaky breath. “Yeah,” it comes out of him like a sigh. “I mean, how _should_ I feel? With a sky filled with as many stars as there are emotions, you would think just _one_ of them could tell me what it is I should feel about my own uncle _killing_ me.”

Sorey takes a sharp breath.

Mikleo’s face tightens, clamps down. He shuts his eyes again and swallows hard. “Sorry—“

“—no, no,” Sorey sits up quickly. “It’s okay.”

Something in the tight wall Mikleo’s built up for himself starts to break. He raises a hand up to his face as he starts to crumble. “ _Gosh,_ I’m sorry—“

“—Mikleo, it’s really _okay_ ,” Sorey insists and he reaches forward for his friend.

In the next moment, Mikleo is brought up from the sand and surrounded in bright warmth. He leans into Sorey’s chest, and his fingers slip into the sides of his blue shirt tightly. He tries to breathe but each time he does, the gasps come out funnier and funnier.

It’s been a long time since he confided in Sorey like this.

Everything else follows like a tidal wave.

“I just—I just don’t know how to feel about someone else—someone who I think should have loved me—thinking my whole life was disposable for his own means. What does that mean?”

“You aren’t disposable, Mikleo.”

“He took me in his own hands. We saw it. He carried me there and—“

“—I know—“

“—my mother was _screaming_ for him to stop, but he didn’t. What kind of person _does_ that?”

“I…I don’t know.”

Mikleo doesn’t quite sob. It’s a different sound that coughs out of him. Something angry, something hurt, something upset—something with every ranging emotion in between. A million feelings he can’t quite grasp, building and rising and falling with every jagged breath.

He shakes in Sorey’s hold until he slowly, slowly stills. Sorey never once lets go.

“…Mikleo?”

The water seraph swallows. His face is pressed hard into a blue shoulder. “Y-yeah?”

“It’s okay, you know. To not know how to feel about it.”

Mikleo turns his head and sighs. He mumbles into Sorey’s collar, “For how long, though? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, O Shepherd of Man, but we kind of have to save the world here one of these days.”

“As long as it takes.” There’s a smile in Sorey’s voice as he brings up a hand to card through his seraph’s hair. Slow, gentle strokes.

“What if it takes forever?”

“I think you’re underestimating yourself,” Sorey says quietly. “But if it takes forever, then it takes forever. There’s not a…a _Celestial Record_ for this sort of thing, you know. There’s not a _Lailah_.”

Mikleo scoffs.

“You just…kind of have to figure it out as you go. And that’s okay.”

A long and slow breath. Mikleo slowly loosens his tight hold on Sorey’s shirt. He leans back.

Sorey’s hands are there immediately, framing his jaw. Mikleo sighs as he can feel the pads of the brunet’s thumbs gently brush away the tear stains on his cheeks. He leans in to the Shepherd’s touch. His next exhale is thin and high. Relieved. He can feel the tension in his brow slowly start to dissipate. He raises a hand to cover one of Sorey’s over his cheek. Delicately, their fingers thread together.

“Okay,” Mikleo breathes.

Sorey slowly smiles. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Amethyst eyes open to green. In the moonlight, they shimmer like stars of their own. A deep breath, in and out. “Yeah. Thank you, Sorey.”

“Anytime, Mikleo.”

They sit in the quiet of the nighttime desert just outside of Loghrin until Mikleo says he’s ready to go back. Sorey walks with him, and the two leave the sand and the expanse of the unknown and uncertain. They tread hand-in-hand back into the city.


End file.
